The University of Texas at San Antonio Online Magazine

Taking the Helm

Brian Woods, M.A. '88, Ed.D. '12

He wonders whether his
8-year-old son is getting an
appropriate education or is
just being taught what's needed
to pass a test.

He thinks about whether
his son gets enough exposure
to music and other creative
elective courses, and about
whether he is learning to be a
team player.

But unlike most parents,
Woods, superintendent of
San Antonio's Northside Independent
School District,
the state's fourth largest, sees
his concerns multiplied by almost
100,000.

Still, his goal is straightforward—high-quality education
for all.

"Across all the dozens of
ways that we measure student
performance, we want
to keep making progress.
We want to have success,"
he said.

When Woods accepted
the superintendent's post
this summer, he inherited a
school district with a booming
population, a shrinking
budget and a wide variety of
student needs.

School districts across the
state took a significant hit after
the Texas Legislature cut
$5.4 billion out of public education
last year. As a result,
Northside reduced its budget
by $61.4 million and eliminated
almost 1,000 positions.

The district stands to lose
even more if a federal budget
stalemate results in across-the-board cuts as part of a
federal deficit-reduction deal.

"For a superintendent, when
you talk about the things that
you have to worry about,
budget and finance are in the
top two or three in any conversation,"
Woods said. The
vast majority of Northside's
budget—87 percent—goes to
staff. "So when you're talking
about big cuts, it impacts your
ability to keep people on who
help kids, and it impacts our
ability to do those things that
are above and beyond what
the state requires."

But if there is anyone who
can tackle these challenges,
it's Woods, said former Northside
superintendent John
Folks, who is now a senior
lecturer in the UTSA College
of Education and Human Development.

"Education today is an especially
complicated business
with all the accountability and
testing and school finance [issues],"
Folks said. But Woods
has intelligence, common
sense and strong communication
and decision-making
abilities, he added.

Woods, who got his start
teaching social studies in
1992, never imagined he'd be
superintendent. His training
through UTSA's educational
leadership program prepared
him to tackle the job, he said.

Now that he is leading
Northside, he will be busy
tackling finance problems,
keeping the quality of education
high and advocating
for public education. But the
driving force behind all his
actions is clear: "You have to
make the most of what you
have, you do absolutely what
you think is in the best interest
of the students as your priority
in decision making."

–Lety Laurel

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